In an e-mail message to supporters Wednesday afternoon, RNC chairman Ken Mehlman said that "the party of the incumbent president typically loses 29 House seats and three Senate seats during the second midterm. "Since World War II, he said, "this average loss is even higher. The truth? Since the end of World War II, three presidents have remained in office long enough to preside over sixth-year midterm elections: Eisenhower lost 48 seats in the House; Reagan lost five; Clinton gained five. That works out to an average loss of about 19 seats

Our federal campaign system tends to select people who are at least moderately corrupt or sold out, but Hastings exceeds that standard by a good measure. It has been over a decade since he was impeached, but that committee seems a bit too important in the current climate to give to someone whose past will make him easily dismissed. Surely Pelosi can find a better candidate for that post.

Okay, let me make sure I have this straight...so a Democratic judge that was impeached AND removed from office by a Democratic-controlled Senate in 1989, but who was NOT convicted of criminal behavior in a court of law in Florida, who was THEN ELECTED after the impeachment and removal a full four years later by the electorate in Florida somehow equates to this not to mention THIS

Okay, let me make sure I have this straight...so a Democratic judge that was impeached AND removed from office by a Democratic-controlled Senate in 1989, but who was NOT convicted of criminal behavior in a court of law in Florida, who was THEN ELECTED after the impeachment and removal a full four years later by the electorate in Florida somehow equates to this not to mention THIS

You can always go back to this and this and this and this. Corruption is not about party. In some cases its about the personal foibles of weak people who are probably fairly evenly distributed through the political parties. In many others its the result of a political system that is inherently corrupting.

I'll make a prediction. If the Dems hold the Congress for 6 years they will begin to be plagued by the same sorts of scandals that plague the Repubs now, and folks like me will be attacking them and folks like you will be defending them. It is as inevitable as the tides.

Never was. Until we the public hold them to the same laws we must obey this will go on. Wait until November 27th and watch Knox County Commission. There is nothing more foolish than to let people that represent you be above the law.

Oh, but the Republicans refined, elevated and institutionalized corruption way beyond the level of a Rosty, who stole stamp money; or a Jim Wright, who had lobbyists buy up gazillions of copies of his autobiography (fascinating as it must have been) -- and it didn't take them nearly as long (1994-2006)to entench and implode as it did the Dems, who had control of Congress for 40 years.

That is, at least in part, due to DeLay's "K Street Project," which was the vehicle by which the GOP was going to take charge of the "Fourth" branch of government -- lobbying. Prior to that, lobbyists with ties to both major parties could thrive. After 1994, you pretty much had to be a Republican, or at least be partners with one, to make out like a bandit.

And if you've been listening to Dick Armey and other Republican ex-legislators, they aren't pulling any punches about the steep decline in civility and bipartisan cooperation after the Gingrich/Hastert takeover in the House and the Frist takeover in the Senate.

I can agree that power corrupts in a non-partisan way, but this new breed of Republicans has institutionalized a whole new level of greed-driven corruption, sanctified by the Lord, of course. Can't forget the role of religion in this.
But you're going to have to go back an awfully long way to match Democratic tit for Republican tat. I'll see your Alycee Hastings and hit you with Bob Ney; trump your Dan Rostenkowski with a Duke Cunningham, and not even have to dig down beneath Newt and Foley to get to my Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed cards.

I can agree that power corrupts in a non-partisan way, but this new breed of Republicans has institutionalized a whole new level of greed-driven corruption, sanctified by the Lord, of course.

Precisely. The GOP has been insulated from accountability, due in part to foreign affairs and in part to the faith-based Wingnut Function. From the post I just linked:

Getting away with it, in general, was their problem. The Republicans had been getting away with crazy, off-the-wall sh*t for a long time, too long to fake it even when the voters started to get wise. They were as helpless in their passion as Peter Lorre in M. Corruption has its own problems, but these guys had gone beyond corruption, and into the realm of depravity.

Beanster, we can argue all day about which party is the more corrupt, as if there were some objective way to measure the matter (Do we count dollars stolen? Adjust them for inflation?), but as Rikki rightly points out above, the purpose of my original post was not to engage in a debate about moral equivalence (although I will confess that I was baited into one.)

The post that started this thread was Mr. Neal's prayer that the Democrats not do anything stupid for the next two years. And yet if the Herald story is to be believed, the Democrats, having talked incessantly about the "culture of corruption" in Washington, are proposing as one of their first official acts as a majority party to elevate to the Chair of one of the most important committees in Congress a man who was impeached and removed from the Federal bench for taking a $150,000 bribe (that's $311,700 adjusted for inflation, btw.)

What I am trying to say is that both parties who are currently controlling the political processes are corrupt and need to be replaced. If you continue to identify with one party or the other, and I do not care which one, you will be disappointed. I have been voting for the person and not the party for my entire life, which includes Regean for gov. in California, Nixon, Carter, Regean, Bush 1, Clinton, Clinton, Bush2x2 thinking it would be the best outcome for our country, but I strongly believe the two party system we are currently enjoying in our daily lives is totally bankrupt.
The "fat cats" in both are corrupt and will not change. There is too much money involved both, on a local level and nationally with the newspapers and television ads. Until we can force election reform to banish money from the the system, it will be the same. Doesn't the FCC own the airwaves? The networks and local broadcasters owe us an honest conversation on the issues. Think about that and how much better it could be if we forced the issue and made the internet the new arbiter of ideas and direction.

No. The people of the United States own the airwaves, the FCC just regulates the frequencies available for commercial and non-commercial public use...they also manage the frequencies reserved for aviation and the military to make sure that those frequencies are kept clear of commercial chatter.

I agree. But isn't it sad that they impeached Clinton over essentially nothing, and now we have a president who has done some really, REALLY bad things that may actually be impeachable, yet we don't want to put the country through that again so he gets a free pass?

Free Pass: At best he is a combination of Calvin Coolidge and Ulysses S. Grant with all the bad parts of Woodrow Wilson thrown in. Let history impeach him. I think you will be hard pressed 50 years from now to find any credible historian who can find anything admirable with regard to Bush.

A hasty impeachment might be a bad move, but the culture of torture needs to be exposed and dismantled. It took a blow to the head yesterday when Rumsfeld resigned, but he should not be let off the hook. The military investigations we've seen so far are inadequate because many of the critical players who ran the prisons where abuses were widespread are outside military jurisdiction. That disgraceful episode in our history must be reckoned with.

There has been way too much stonewalling, obfuscation and lack of accountability to just write off impeachment, but I agree it is not a starting point. Democrats should start with inquiries and investigations, and as Americans see past the thin excuses the administration has been allowed to hide behind, they will come decide whether impeachment is warranted.

Republicans -- real Republicans, not pinheads like Egad-a-Dingleberry -- should welcome such investigations as an opportunity to purge their party of the filth they've accumulated in the see-no-truth, hear-no-truth, speak-no-truth Limbaugh era.

Contempt of Congress charges would start before the proceedings convened if you believe what the Big Dick says. He said that he won't appear.

And while the image of seeing Cheney strapped to a hand-trolley and forced to appear to answer questions has its novelty, convicting any member of the neocon cabal (and I'd like to see notices to appear issued to Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, O'Beirne, Bremer, Rice, Powell, Tenet, and R. Clarke) of anything is pointless during this administration. Remember, the most substantial charges in the criminal record was cleared by Presidential pardon. Ex-convicts Elliot Abrams and John Poindexter even got jobs in this administration.

There will be no long-term commitment to justice for the Cheney Administration. History bears this out.

I would only hope our country can see through all of the posturing by both sides. If you want to see a Democratic Haliburton, check out Perini Corporation, Richard Blum and who he is married to. Yes, that Diane Feinstein (D-Ca)

I like to think that Bushco, with the knowledge that a watchful opposition party is in charge of Congress and has the iStick in its toolbox, will end their extra-Constitutional activities.

Instead they will probably just get even more secretive in their endeavors moving from the Nixonian, "If the President does it, it's not illegal" to the Cas Walkerian, "It ain't illegal if you don't get caught".

Of course the Dems are capable of corruption. But to compare the worst of (modern) Dem corruption to what happened the last six years is like blithely lumping together shoplifting and armed robbery.

The GOP built a machine unprecedented in scale and scope that the Democrats simply couldn't replicate even if they wanted to. It is about party, for one big reason: the GOP can tap and dole out a helluva lot more cash.

As far as the executive branch goes, impeachment should be off the table unless the preznit refuses to back off of this Federalist Society bullshit.

Some big name Democrats want to oust DNC Chairman Howard Dean, arguing that his stubborn commitment to the 50-state strategy and his stinginess with funds for House races cost the Democrats several pickup opportunities.

The candidate being floated to replace Dean? Harold Ford.

Says James Carville, one of the anti-Deaniacs, "Suppose Harold Ford became chairman of the DNC? How much more money do you think we could raise? Just think of the difference it could make in one day. Now probably Harold Ford wants to stay in Tennessee. I just appointed myself his campaign manager."

Says James Carville, one of the anti-Deaniacs, "Suppose Harold Ford became chairman of the DNC? How much more money do you think we could raise? Just think of the difference it could make in one day. Now probably Harold Ford wants to stay in Tennessee. I just appointed myself his campaign manager."

Thus the civil war of the Democrats begins. For those who don't travel to Uncle's place I called this a few hours ago.

I caught Dennis Kucinich on some cable news show last night. He was talking about how Democrats would be able to campaign in '08 on having gotten us out of Iraq. That seems a bit presumptuous, but let's assume we do manage to more or less disengage from Iraq next year. It won't be pretty. Even if the Iraqis manage to resolve their power struggles without a prolonged bloodletting, their infrastructure is still in disrepair despite the billions we have allegedly invested in their hospitals, sewers, transmission lines, pipelines and roads. They could very well ask for more money!

If a troop withdrawal is accompanied by a huge outlay of U.S. dollars, the Republicans could easily use that against the Dems. This makes it vital that a full auditing and investigation of our Iraq expenses be done. Congress should start by looking at where the lost $9 billion went. If it's gone without a trace, some heads need to roll. How much money we've spent, lost and wasted over there under the Republicans must become common knowledge among Americans before we start to withdraw, otherwise the Dems will just become the butt of the joke.

By a similar line of reasoning, the "bad apples" theory of Abu Ghraib must not stand. Democrats must shine a bright light on all the missteps Bush made in Iraq to avoid simply inheriting the blame.

Leave Halliburton and 9/11 and the pre-war sabotage of our intelligence agencies out of it until the simple mismanagement of billions of dollars is common knowledge and the blame firmly affixed on those who earned it.

Tuning in to Republican media today was likely to get you an explanation of how pork works. When Ted Stevens was promising to resign from the Senate if they took his precious bridge away, Republican media talked about earmarking and appropriations as though they were an inside joke shared among both parties and the American people at large. "Haha, look at those funny politicians doing what funny politicians do! You can't grow a pig without slopping the trough!"

Today the Republican media took the joke a little more seriously, tossing a civics lesson about committees and spending bills into its coverage of Murtha's bid for a party leadership position. This is good. It means four years of distraction did not wipe the knowledge of how federal spending gets out of control from Republican brains. They do remember! They just had no reason to talk about it for the last four years, being so bloated from the slopfest they could manage little more than borborygmi.

How long will this sudden Republican bloodlust for exposing corruption last? Will they go back to their usual stance of laughing it off as something everyone does once the party leadership positions have been chosen? If so, Democrats will probably be happy to play along. If not, investigations of the Executive Branch will become all the more critical as a way to keep control of public dialogue.

Any conversation about corruption should begin with military contracting under Bush. If Democrats do not demand testimony from former and current Bush officials, Republicans will turn the corruption issue on them. Libby, Hannah, Clarke, Powell, Rice, Ashcroft, Gonzales, Myers, Hughes, Cambone, White, Card, Rove, Fleischer, McClellan, O'Neill and some others not coming to mind at the moment, they all need to be sworn in.